City of Dreadful Night

EIGHTEEN

‘ S ome people are crap at delivering messages,’ Tingley said, standing by my hospital bed.

‘That’s not how I see it,’ I mumbled, wincing as I tried to sit up.

‘Well, as I understand it, you don’t know who sent the message and you don’t know what the message was since they knocked you unconscious.’

‘The medium is the message,’ I whispered. I couldn’t get my breath.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ I coughed. ‘Presumably they would have left the message had they not been disturbed.’

I’d regained consciousness in the car park to find a gaggle of people crowding around me. Racegoers who’d disturbed my attacker. The two thugs still standing had hauled the two on the floor into a white van and sped the wrong way out of the car park.

After I vomited on their shoes, the racegoers had given me space. Someone had called Ronnie, the community policeman, and he had got me into hospital in Haywards Heath. I’d been kept in overnight in case I had concussion from the whack on my head. This morning the doctor had decided I was probably OK.

‘I could have told them that last night,’ Tingley said. ‘You and your hard head.’

‘Somebody got the number plates, but the van will be stolen or the plates will be cloned,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t get a look at the man who said the message was from him.’

‘Did anyone else?’

‘Apparently not – baseball cap pulled low – you know.’

‘At least for once it was the appropriate headgear,’ Tingley said.

After a moment I smiled and gingerly touched the lump on the back of my head.

‘I’ve got stuff to tell you,’ Tingley said. ‘But not here.’

‘I’ll be discharged later this morning.’

I winced again.

‘Let’s meet at The Cricketers.’ Tingley said. ‘But soft drinks for you.’

‘Will I like what you have to say?’

Tingley waggled his hand.

‘Etsy ketsy,’ he said.

‘Which is Greek to me,’ I said.

‘I’ll see you at one.’

Gilchrist and Reg Williamson were on their way to Lewes Prison to take a new statement from Gary Parker.

‘On the direct orders of Sheena Hewitt, eh?’ Williamson said as they drove out of Brighton. ‘The deal must have been done. Wonder what the scumbag is being offered.’

‘I don’t know, Reg. There isn’t much room for manoeuvre.’ Gilchrist was excited, as she hoped Parker might have some real news for her.

‘You’re kidding, Sarah. They’ll go the temporary insanity route, he’ll be put in some country club loonie bin, get tested in a couple of years and come out in three.’

‘Well, he was under the influence of a lot of drugs,’ Gilchrist said.

‘The guy’s a scumbag born and bred.’

‘Reg, can I ask – do you think those awareness courses you’ve taken have been working?’

Ten minutes later, Gilchrist was tending to agree with him.

Parker was looking even unhealthier than the last time she’d seen him. His face was puffy and sallow, almost green, and his eyes were sunk into their sockets. His mouth was even filthier too.

‘You know what I discovered?’ he said. ‘I discovered that poncey people like cock and twat as much as the rest of us.’ He sniffed. ‘Actually, they love it more.’

Parker’s solicitor was sitting beside him. He was a harassed man in an ill-fitting pinstripe suit. He stared at the table as Parker was talking.

‘Is that your news?’ Gilchrist said. ‘Next you’ll be telling me there are gays in Brighton.’

Parker sniggered.

‘Well, it’s arse bandits I’m talking about. Easy money to be made down at Black Rock. Fucking perverts turning up, cock in one hand, roll of twenties in the other.’

‘You’re saying you’ve been a rent boy?’ Gilchrist said.

‘Stick it up your tight arse. I’ve kicked their fucking heads in, pissed on them, then taken their money is what I’ve done. Easy bloody money.’

Gilchrist’s mind wandered for a moment. Black Rock was where the head of the Trunk Murder victim had been found, then lost again. Then and now there were posh apartments above. Now there was also a lot of nocturnal activity in the bushes below. It was a well-known cottaging place, but Gilchrist hadn’t heard much about gay-bashing there. She guessed it was the closet gays who were being attacked. They weren’t going to report it.

‘What has gay-bashing got to do with Little Stevie and the Milldean thing?’

Parker started jiggling his leg but said nothing.

‘I thought we were supposed to be moving forward in this meeting.’ Gilchrist addressed herself to the lawyer. He adjusted his glasses on his nose and looked from her to Parker. Parker didn’t know which nervous tic to focus on. He was actually quivering. Gilchrist knew he was being given methadone and other medication to help his withdrawal from the cocktail of drugs and booze he’d been living on for years.

Parker chewed at his finger.

‘Bloke I was at school with. Bunked off school with, really. We was mates. Turns out he takes it up the bum. Likes chugging it too.’

‘Little Stevie.’

Parker looked at Gilchrist.

‘You’ve got a mouth on you – bet you’ve chugged a few in your time. Will you chug me?’

‘Mr Parker,’ the lawyer said quietly.

‘That must have messed you up,’ Williamson snarled. ‘Your mate being gay. Did you bash him?’

‘I give him one up the arse is what I did. Fucking poof.’

Williamson leant forward.

‘You lost me there,’ he said. ‘You punish a homosexual by sodomizing him?’

‘So you’re gay, too?’ Gilchrist said.

Parker stubbed a finger on the table.

‘Course not, you ignorant bint.’

‘Mr Parker-’ the lawyer said, his voice gloomy.

‘You do someone, even a bloke, that’s the power. You let yourself be done, that’s something else.’

Gilchrist forced a laugh, though she never felt less like laughing.

‘Oh, it’s that prison thing – you’re only gay if you’re on the receiving end.’

‘Don’t know about that-’

‘Dream on, Parker,’ Williamson said. ‘You’re a jobbie jammer – and, as for sucking men off, is that why your teeth are such a bloody mess?’

‘All right, that’s enough-’ the lawyer said.

Parker swivelled his eyes between Gilchrist and Williamson.

‘I ain’t gay, you dyke bitch, and you, you fat bastard.’

‘If you’re not now, you will be by the time they’ve finished with you in prison.’ Williamson said. ‘You’ll be able to get the Flying Scotsman up you by the time some of those boys have finished with you. Sorry – Flying Scotsman is before your time. It’s a train, boyo – and not a diesel.’

The lawyer was on his feet.

‘I think that’s the end of this discussion.’ He looked down at Parker. ‘Mr Parker.’

Parker was still looking from Gilchrist to Williamson, his horrible teeth bared in a grin. He pointed at Gilchrist.

‘’S OK, Mr Whatsit. As long as she frigs me. Or she could do the milkmaid’s shuffle.’

The lawyer looked exasperated and sank back in his seat. Williamson was clenching his fists. Gilchrist touched his arm.

‘What about this friend of yours?’ she said. ‘Little Stevie.’

Parker seemed to have forgotten his request.

‘He was a rent boy. Made a lot of money in Brighton.’

‘We have no record of him. Besides, I would have thought, given the number of consenting adults, this would be a place where you wouldn’t make money.’

‘He wasn’t on the streets. Conferences. Especially the political ones. All these happily married men wanting to stuff him. He made good money.’

‘You kept in touch, then?’

‘Saw him around.’

‘And?’

‘And fucking what?’ He was scrunched up in his seat now. Gilchrist looked at the ceiling, talked to it.

‘And how did he end up dead in Milldean?’

Parker glanced at his lawyer. The lawyer nodded.

‘He met this bloke. Did him. Bloke left his wallet behind.’

‘So he nicked it.’ Williamson said. ‘And we’re talking blackmail?’

Parker didn’t look at him but said:

‘We’re talking the massacre in Milldean. You fuckers kill him and all his friends. That’s why I’m nervous – you’re all in it.’

Gilchrist stared a hole in the table.

‘Did Little Stevie tell you whose wallet he had nicked?’ she said.

This was the crunch question. This was the deal.

Parker flicked a glance at his lawyer. His lawyer looked straight ahead.

‘Do I have a name to give you?’ Parker leered. ‘Well, yeah.’

Tingley was waiting for me in The Cricketers, sitting at the bar with a rum and pep in his hand. He bought me a tonic water and led me over to a dark corner. I was walking stiffly – my back was in bad shape.

‘Etsy ketsy – haven’t heard that for a while,’ I said.

We’d been in the Balkans together for a bit and a Greek officer had tried to teach us some colloquialisms. ‘Etsy ketsy’ was phonetic Greek for ‘so so’ – provided you used the hand wiggle and maybe a little shrug.

‘Just popped into my head,’ Tingley said, then got down to it. ‘OK, according to the man from the shadow world, the couple in bed were the targets. Little Stevie was collateral.’

I thought for a moment.

‘I don’t buy that. If we’re placing Simpson somehow at the centre of this, then the target is the rent boy.’

‘But that might not be all of it,’ Tingley said. ‘I don’t know how much I believe of what I was told, but it was plausible.’

‘Those men are always plausible. That’s their stock-in-trade.’

‘I know that,’ Tingley said, his tone of voice making me feel foolish.

‘I know you know,’ I said. ‘So what was his scenario?’

‘The couple in bed were Bosnian Serbs and, therefore, potential business rivals for the Brighton crime families. But they lucked into Little Stevie.’

‘And?’

‘They bought him.’

‘I thought he was just for rent.’

Tingley gave me a look.

‘They were trying to blackmail the government.’

‘Didn’t know you could blackmail a whole government,’ I said.

‘Yes, you did.’ Tingley was getting impatient. ‘Terrorists do it all the time.’

‘These weren’t terrorists, though. So it was Simpson they were trying to blackmail?’

‘They were hoping to implicate him in something, yes, but I don’t think it was just the rent boy thing.’

I frowned.

‘He isn’t high enough up the food chain for the government to be worried, is he?’ I said. ‘Friends though they are, the PM would have cut him loose without hesitation. Unless it had implications for others higher up. Did your man know?’

Tingley shook his head.

‘He said it was beyond his pay grade. Suggested we ask Simpson.’

‘That’s going to work.’ I touched the lump on the back of my head. ‘Did your contact say if anyone else locally was involved?’

‘He said – and I quote – “There may have been other local ramifications, yes.” But, again, I don’t have the detail.’

Tingley moved his glass around the table.

‘Maybe Simpson is in deep with one of the local crime families. He grew up here, didn’t he?’

‘As did I,’ I said. ‘We didn’t move in their circles.’

‘University days. Drugs?’

I thought for a moment.

‘Maybe. But what about me? Maybe we’re missing something. Did I have to be removed because I was a threat to somebody on the force? Was I threatening some comfortable deal between police officers and local crime people?’

Tingley steepled his hands.

‘There might be some of that,’ he said. ‘But how did they know you would react in that way? It was your reaction that got you booted out. They couldn’t predict that.’

‘Maybe I was collateral damage too. Big foot, bigger mouth.’

Tingley smiled.

‘Then you became an embarrassment. So, actually, nobody was out to get you – this wasn’t planned to bring you down.’

I wasn’t going to admit that. I wasn’t able to. I looked beyond him to the row of spirits behind the bar.

‘Why was this man happy to tell you now?’ I said.

‘Timing. New way of doing things. Some familiar faces won’t be hanging around the corridors of power any more…’

I frowned.

‘You mean Simpson’s on his way out? Hmm. Maybe.’ Kate popped into my head. ‘How are we going to tell Kate exactly what’s going on with her father?’

Tingley shrugged.

‘Not my area of expertise.’ He looked across the room. ‘I want you to have a chat with someone I know.’

‘That’s always interesting. Who?’

Tingley gestured towards a table in the opposite corner of the pub.

‘A grass.’

I’d noticed the short, middle-aged man with the comb-over when I’d come in. He was with a strikingly pretty woman, taller than him. She was wearing full make-up and might have had plastic surgery to define that jawline. But there was a puffiness about her face. I’d wondered if she was an alcoholic and he the man who kept her drinking under some kind of control. There was an empty bottle of white wine and two empty glasses on the table alongside two further glasses. His was almost full, hers almost empty. They were doing a crossword in the paper and she was looking bored, but maybe that was because she wanted another drink.

‘What’s he got to say for himself?’

‘Let’s find out,’ Tingley said, leading me across the room.

Sheena Hewitt looked older. The Acting Chief Constable’s face was gaunt and there were dark shadows under her eyes that her inexpertly applied make-up couldn’t conceal.

‘What’s so urgent, Sarah?’ she said, tapping her pen on her desk. She sounded weary, too.

Gilchrist was seated in an uncomfortably low chair to one side of the desk, conscious of her knees sticking up in front of her.

‘I had a further interview with Gary Parker this morning. He told us that the male prostitute known as Little Stevie was attempting to blackmail William Simpson, the government adviser.’

‘He has proof of this?’

‘Not direct proof, no, ma’am.’

‘Then it’s hearsay evidence. There’s nothing to be done with it.’

‘But, ma’am, it’s a lead.’

Hewitt sat back in her seat and dropped the pen on her desk.

‘Sarah, the Milldean affair is old news. The Hampshire investigation has concluded no individuals should be prosecuted. Nobody is publicly pressing for any further enquiry and I don’t intend to stir things up again. Enough damage has been done to the reputation of this force already. My job is to contain it and move on. All the officers involved have left the force, retiring on the grounds of ill-health. You are the lucky one. You are working again.’

Gilchrist was indignant.

‘But, ma’am, that means nobody is being held to account for what happened.’

‘Our lax procedures are largely responsible and we are making strenuous efforts to put new ones in place.’

‘That’s just a whitewash,’ Gilchrist said heatedly. She saw Hewitt’s face. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

Hewitt leant forward and stabbed her finger at Gilchrist.

‘DS Gilchrist, the Milldean affair is not your case, nor has it ever been. You are meddling in things to the detriment of this force and your other duties. You will desist forthwith or you will face disciplinary procedures. Am I clear?’

Gilchrist’s face was burning with a mixture of anger and frustration.

‘Am I clear?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Then you’re dismissed,’ Hewitt said, picking up her pen and pulling a sheaf of papers towards her.

The woman picked up her glass and went to sit at the bar when Tingley and I approached. The grass’s name was Stewart Nealson. I was expecting him to be shifty but he was articulate and open.

‘Bob here is interested in knowing a bit more about what the families are up to.’

‘What they’re up to?’ Nealson touched his nose. ‘The usual dodges and scams. But they’re under a lot of pressure from outsiders. Specially on the smuggling racket through Newhaven and Shoreham.’

‘What do you hear about Milldean?’ I said.

Nealson looked over at the woman at the bar.

‘A real mess from every side you look at it. And best kept away from.’

‘The Bosnian Serb connection?’ Tingley said.

‘Not a people you want to piss off.’

‘Tell us about it,’ I murmured. Tingley and I had not enjoyed our Bosnian tour.

‘And Hathaway and Cuthbert?’

‘Not involved, as far as I’m aware. Though Cuthbert’s on the warpath for you, Jimmy. You need to watch out.’

A thought occurred to me.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about Cuthbert in relation to Ditchling last night, have you?’

Nealson smoothed down his comb-over.

‘Well, he would have been in the neighbourhood. He always goes to Plumpton races – prefers it over the jumps to flat-racing. Plus he has a bit of business going on, of course.’

I exchanged a glance with Tingley.

I thanked Nealson and we left about five minutes later.

‘How’s he connected to the gangs?’ I said as we walked through the Laines. ‘Seems too straight.’

‘Accountant,’ Tingley replied. ‘Strictly legit and only handles their legit businesses, but he hears things.’

‘Taking a bit of a risk, isn’t he?’

‘His missus has expensive habits. Most of what he makes goes up her nose or down her gullet.’

I was contemplating her ruined beauty when my mobile rang.

‘Gilchrist,’ I mouthed to Tingley.

‘Had another meeting with Gary Parker,’ she said.

‘And?’

‘He gave us William Simpson’s name. I told Hewitt. She’s not interested.’

‘I’ve a feeling we can do something,’ I said. ‘I feel certain we’re closing in.’

‘That’s not my feeling,’ she said. ‘My feeling is that we don’t have a clue what’s going on.’

‘We have clues aplenty. It’s fitting them together that’s the problem. Let’s meet later at Kate’s place.’

Gilchrist ended the call. She was lying on the bed in Kate’s spare room. She was restless. She jackknifed off the bed and went over to the chest of drawers to change. She opened the top drawer and saw the framed photos lying face down. Absently, she turned them over.

I eventually found a parking space near Kate’s flat – Brighton is not car-friendly – and walked the few hundred yards to her door, working out what I needed to say to her. When she buzzed me in, Gilchrist was sitting on the sofa. Gilchrist gave me an intense look.

‘Kate,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to worry about this stuff that’s going on now. It’s nothing to do with that scare you had.’

‘Are you excluding me?’ Kate said.

‘Just didn’t want to bore you,’ I said. ‘You’re in if you want to be.’

‘Let me find some booze,’ she said, disappearing into the kitchen.

‘Something I want to show you in my bedroom,’ Gilchrist hissed at me.

‘You haven’t found the head in there, have you?’

She looked totally thrown.

‘The Trunk Murder victim?’ I said. ‘Forget it – bad joke.’

Gilchrist looked exasperated.

‘You know, frankly, I don’t really care about that.’

‘About what?’ Kate said, walking back in with a bottle of wine.

The doorbell sounded.

‘That’ll be Tingley,’ I said.

Kate headed for the door. Gilchrist laughed for no reason and stood to usher me towards her bedroom. The moment we were in there she handed me a framed picture.

‘Is that Kate with her parents?’

It was a much younger Kate, and William didn’t have his goatee, but it was unmistakably the family. I nodded.

‘Then we need to talk,’ she said, striding back into the living room.

Kate was ushering Tingley in.

‘Was your meeting with the Godfather useful?’ Kate said to Tingley.

‘Hathaway? Not really. But he put me on to someone else who was much more interesting. And today Bob and I got a little tickle from an acquaintance of mine.’

Gilchrist looked from one to the other of us.

‘Oh, what – there’s some stuff only the boys should know?’

Tingley looked down.

‘Some of this information specifically affects Bob,’ he said. ‘I’m not trying to exclude anyone. If Bob wants to share it with you and Kate, fine.’

‘It’s fine with me,’ I said. ‘But Kate, it also specifically affects you because of your father.’

Kate shifted in her seat.

‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘Your father is behind some bad things,’ Tingley said, his voice unusually gentle.

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Kate said, barking a laugh that couldn’t quite conceal her… conceal her what? Dread? Alarm? Fear? There was something, but I didn’t know her well enough to know what she was feeling.

‘He could end up in prison for a very long time,’ I said quietly.

Kate looked at her glass of wine, picked it up and took the smallest of sips.

‘It was only a matter of time,’ she said tonelessly. She put her glass back down on the table, very precisely. I glanced at Gilchrist. She looked like she was about to burst.

‘Did you get anywhere else with Philippa?’ I said to her.

She took a breath. Exhaled.

‘I thought I had. Now I’m not so sure.’

I frowned, but she gave a slight shake of her head.

‘Finch killed Little Stevie,’ she said. ‘That’s the first thing she said.’

‘And the rest?’ I said.

She shrugged.

‘According to Tingley’s source,’ I said, ‘Little Stevie wasn’t the main target. It was the couple in bed.’

‘Who were?’

‘That we still don’t know specifically. Bosnian Serb gangster and his moll, apparently.’

‘Moll?’ Kate said. Then, after a pause: ‘How is my dad involved with Bosnian gangsters?’

‘We think his link is with Little Stevie,’ I said.

Kate reached for her glass but stopped, her hand still outstretched.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘OK.’

Gilchrist was looking at Kate.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

Kate grimaced.

‘As I said: long time coming.’

Gilchrist stood and nodded at me.

‘I think you and I should have another crack at Philippa Franks,’ she said.

‘If you think I can help. When?’

‘Now?’

They took Watts’s car. The moment they were in it, he turned to her:

‘What’s going on?’

‘I recognize Kate’s father,’ she said. ‘William Simpson. I couldn’t think where at first.’

‘You’ve probably seen him on the telly,’ Watts said. ‘He does a lot of broadcasting.’

‘No, from somewhere else. Somewhere here.’ She took a big breath. ‘I saw him having an argument with Philippa Franks in a cafe in Hove a few weeks ago.’

Watts was silent for a moment. Tingley murmured:

‘Bingo.’

‘Hence our need to get back to her,’ Watts said. He looked at Tingley in the rear-view mirror. ‘Do you want to come with us?’

‘You don’t need me. Let’s talk later.’

Watts dropped Tingley on the seafront opposite The Ship and drove on in silence.

‘I assumed it was a lover’s tiff,’ Gilchrist said.

‘It may have been. Even so, it’s heady stuff.’

Watts parked near the entrance to the block of flats and Gilchrist rang Franks’s doorbell.

‘It’s me again. Sarah.’

There was silence, then Franks buzzed them in. They took the lift. Watts seemed embarrassed by their proximity in the lift, but maybe Gilchrist was imagining that.

Franks’s door was ajar. They knocked then walked in. She was standing on her balcony looking out to sea. The noise of the traffic going by on the main drag below ricocheted into the confined space. She saw Gilchrist’s expression.

‘I’d always wanted a place overlooking the sea. Imagined myself sitting out on the balcony of an evening with a glass of wine, listening to my favourite music, watching the sun go down. But the traffic along the sea front – who knew that sound rises? The fact is I can’t hear the music because of the blare of the traffic and the sea frets usually obscure the sun.’ She lifted her glass. ‘At least there’s still the wine.’ She nodded at Watts. ‘Cheers, sir.’

‘Call me Bob,’ he said.

‘It won’t get you anywhere,’ she said.

‘How do you know William Simpson?’ Watts said.

Franks was startled. It was clear she was about to deny it, equally clear that she realized there was no point.

‘H-how did you…?’

‘The man I saw you with – that was him, wasn’t it?’ Gilchrist said.

Franks sighed.

‘It’s not easy meeting men when you work our hours and you have two kids.’

She sounded tipsy.

‘Is there anything you want to tell us about you and William Simpson with regard to the Milldean operation?’ Watts said.

Franks looked puzzled.

‘Nothing at all. Why?’

Gilchrist reached out to squeeze Franks’s arm.

‘We think that Simpson is somehow involved with what went wrong there and since you were involved with him…’

Franks’s eyes flashed.

‘You think he asked me to shoot somebody?’

‘What happened in that house?’ Watts said.

‘I’ve already told Sarah,’ Franks said. ‘Jesus. Let’s go inside.’

There were two big sofas in the sitting room. Franks took one, Gilchrist and Watts took the other.

‘It’s looking like the couple in the bed were a hit,’ Watts said.

After staring at him for a moment Franks said:

‘And?’

‘I wondered if you knew anything about it.’

She bridled and over-enunciated as she said:

‘I was nowhere near the front bedroom. And why would I be doing hits? It’s absurd – I’m a single mum, for Christ’s sake, not a contract killer.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m not saying you did anything. I just wondered what you knew.’

‘I’ve told Sarah what I know. And I also told her that my life and the lives of my children had been threatened.’

Watts looked at Gilchrist, who nodded then turned to Franks.

‘And your relationship with William Simpson has nothing to do with this?’ Gilchrist said. ‘Was that argument in the restaurant really about your affair?’

Franks gave her a hard look.

‘Fuck off, Sarah. How dare you? You presumed on our friendship earlier to get me to talk to you. But this, coming to my home like this – my home – and asking me this shit – this oversteps the mark.’

She got up from her sofa, swayed for just a second.

‘In fact, I want you both to leave. Conversation over.’

Gilchrist stood but noted Watts stayed where he was.

‘Philippa – we’re just trying to figure this out. It’s a bad coincidence that you’ve been having a thing with a man who seems to have some involvement with what happened in Milldean.’

‘You think those threats I got came from William Simpson? He’s a shit but he’s not that much of a shit.’

‘But your relationship-’

‘It hardly was a relationship. A few meals and hurried sex whenever he was down here.’

‘What about Little Stevie?’ Watts said.

Franks turned and peered down at Watts.

‘Little Stevie?’

‘The rent boy I mentioned earlier,’ Gilchrist said.

Franks looked from Watts to Gilchrist.

‘What about him? How would he connect to William Simpson?’

Gilchrist and Watts both looked away. Franks swayed a little.

‘Oh Christ. Well, isn’t that just the icing on the bloody cake?’